iPhone Developers scratch heads at new Stanford CS offering (Updated)

As the iPhone SDK NDA continues on, Stanford University has listed an iPhone …

Some iPhone developers are perplexed over a recent course catalog listing for Stanford University's Computer Science department. Despite the nondisclosure agreement Apple has imposed on developers making use of the iPhone SDK, the California university will begin offering CS193P this fall: iPhone Application programming. The course will be taught by a Professor Marcos on Tuesdays and Thursdays this upcoming semester. We currently have an e-mail into our contacts at Stanford for further information, but have not received a response as of this writing.

The curious part is that the SDK has been under a (f*cking?) NDA since its beta release in March, preventing developers to talk amongst each other (or in public) without fear of losing their Apple developer privileges. Further, as many devs have pointed out, it has delayed potential classes, publications, and books that could lead to more mature applications and further educate those potential coders.

Therefore, the class listing opens up a number of questions. Will Apple be ending the NDA soon? Is Stanford privy to this information? Has Apple approved the course? It would seem silly for Apple to seek legal action against the university; at this point, the whole NDA seems a bit silly since all of the information is public. Of course, perhaps this is exactly what Apple needs to snap out of its NDA trance.

Update:It turns out that the individual teaching the class, Paul Marcos, is a long time Apple employee who has been teaching Cocoa classes at Stanford for some time. At this time we are unsure whether the class is sanctioned by Apple, but it would seem to be the case from this new information.